Northern Sami: What? Why? How?

One fine day at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, I was walking around and I was very hungry, having traversed each of the four stories of the very large museum. (Yes, there was a restaurant, but it was expensive and it didn’t seem that it would have too high quality food. And besides, it was on the bottom story and I was on the upper floors when the hunger hit!)

The Nordic Museum is a fantastic place, complete with a journey through Swedish fashion throughout the ages, and an in-detail description of the life and writings of August Strindberg, possibly the best known Swedish author of them all (okay, Astrid Lindgren also deserves a mention).

The top story of the museum had an array of Sami crafts and clothing, not also to mention a history of Swedish-Sami relations. For those of you who have ever heard of “Lapland”, “Sami” is the politically correct term for the people who live there, with the word “Lapp” and “Lappish” being considered offensive in some circles, despite being used on multiple translations of Wikipedia. (These words still make me cringe when I hear them spoken…)

The indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia, the Sami have a host of languages to their name, the most prominent of which is Northern Sami (Davvisámegiella), in which the National Anthem of Samiland (Sápmi) is written.

Thanks largely to the Sami people being on the recieving end of a host oppressive campaigns of many sorts, as well as the fact that the Sami people and languages have been influenced by Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, and that these cultures have been influenced by the Sami in return—there are many resources for the learning the Sami Languages, especially Northern Sami, with the most popular being Giella Tekno at the University of Tromsø: (http://giellatekno.uit.no/)

I cannot speak about the other Sami Languages right now, although it should be noted that a significant amount of them have become extinct and a host of others are still living. The Sami Languages are not mutually intelligible, but since I have only put serious effort into one of them I cannot comment on the similarities between them (or lack thereof).

If you are a Finnic Language buff, you may recognize that the word “Giella” in Northern Sami resembles that of “Kieli” in Finnish and “Keel” in Estonia. Northern Sami is Finno-Ugric, and as a result resembles Finnish and Estonian not only in cognates but in other regards:

(1) The accent is always on the first syllable (a hard-set rule throughout the language family).

In Northern Sami, it isn’t as intuitive (Remember that with the lack of articles, “the” can be also translated as “a” in the example):

Jávri = the sea (subject)

Jávrri = of the sea, sea (direct object)

Jávrái = to the sea

Jávrris = from the sea, by the sea

Jávrriin = to the sea

Jávrin = such as the sea

Note the nominative with the singular “r” and the other forms with two. Now for this:

Sápmi = A Sami person

Sámi = of a Sami person, Sami person (direct object)

Sápmái = to a Sami person

Sámis = from a Sami person, by a Sami person

Sámiin = to a Sami Person

Sápmin = such as a Sami Person

In this example, the nominative has the “pm” and then is gradated to “m”. Hence, Finland in Northern Sami is “Suopma”, of Finnish/Finland would be “Suoma”.

About Northern Sami itself, I have heard people asking why I even bother to invest my time in it every single time I bring it up! In other cases, I’m even lucky if I’m asking people who know what it is. If they do, however, the fact that I know even a bit of Northern Sami is very, very heartily appreciated.

I cannot understand why many people overlook the fact that very rarely spoken languages can reap huge rewards when you run into the right people—or even with commanding a significant respect from many others who have never even heard of it! Even if you know only about one page’s worth of vocabulary! (This was particularly true about a year ago when I had a non-serious flirtationship with Greenlandic. Now that relationship is serious…)

So that’s your homework: get learning a very rare language. There are lots of them. And more resources for them that you realize. Start today!

Back on topic…

The primary reason I chose to invest in Northern Sami was because I have an interest in Nordic Culture and I wanted to investigate the linguistic interplay between the Northern Sami Languages and Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian (and I look forward to dragging Russian out of my “Forgotten Language” zone).

One fine day at a pool party I brought my very trusty Northern Sami notebook (the words “Ale Stuža!” [Do not splash!] were very useful!), I had to explain what sort of language this was and why I was learning it(for what was not the first and what definitely will not be the last time).

Why? Understanding Scandinavia better, through its more unheard voices.

What? Picture this: Norwegian and Swedish have a baby, and then that baby grows up and has a baby with the Finnish Language. That is what Northern Sami is…very, very roughly.

What do you do with it? Well, that’s up to you. There are translations to be done, there is the Bible in Northern Sami, there is even a Learn Useless Northern Sami Page on Facebook (which has been inactive for a while but is still useful). If you learn by association (the way I do), the other Nordic Languages become easier to memorize and learn (especially Finnish).

Of course, it is also a vital piece of history as well, and in many tourist attractions in Sweden you can see Northern Sami being used in Museum media. It is, after all, one of the official languages of Sweden, and one of the official languages of NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

There is also a Sami kindergarten in Helsinki and in all four countries which make up a part of Samiland, there are efforts and usages that will reward you, not also to mention “Ođđasat” (the Sami News channel), a Kubuntu translation, and a handful of Northern Sami video games that you can find it you look hard enough!

And for those of you who scrolled all the way to the bottom in order to find out how many speakers the language has, I’ll place the estimate at around 20,000, a number which is probably either from UNESCO or Wikipedia.

As to what I used, the biggest piece of it was a Northern Sami-Swedish Course called “Gulahalan” (I Make Myself Understood), which has twenty lessons all for free! I will review the course on another occasion!

Until then, I hope that this post inspires you to take up a study, however serious, of some small language that you may have had your eyes or heart on for a while!